Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing device, an image processing method, and a printing system. In particular, the present invention relates to an image processing technology to generate a halftone image for printing from a continuous-tone image.
Description of the Related Art
In a printing system in which image formation is performed by a printing device such as an ink jet printing device or an offset printing device, data of a halftone image adapted for the image outputting method in the printing device is generated by applying halftone processing to data of a continuous-tone image expressed in multiple tones. Data of a halftone image is used as dot image data for printing, showing a dot pattern in which a dot arrangement of halftone dots and the size of each dot, to be reproduced by a printing device, are defined. The printing device performs image formation based on the data of a halftone image.
As a method of halftone processing for obtaining a high-quality halftone image, the Direct Binary Search (DBS) method has been known (Sagar Bhatt, John Harlim, Joel Lepak, Robert Ronkese, John Sabino, Chai Wah Wu, “Direct Binary Search with Adaptive Search and Swap”, pp. 1-9, 2005).